MEXICO CITY (AP)  Former President Vicente Fox suggested Friday that Mexican authorities consider calling on drug cartels for a truce and offering them amnesty, speaking out a day after an apparent cartel attack on a casino killed 52 people.
Fox, who served from 2000 to 2006, has since advocated legalizing drugs as a way to reduce violence. At least 35,000 and as many as 40,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in late 2006.

Not surrendering Mexico to drug cartels...Why a truce between Mexico and the drug cartels makes no senseSeptember 2, 2011 - After the latest massacre of Mexican citizens, former President Fox said authorities should seek a truce with the gangs &#8211; a suggestion that isn't feasible, says guest blogger Patrick Corcoran.

In response to the latest massacre of Mexican citizens by criminal groups, former President Vicente Fox said the authorities should seek a truce with the drug gangs &#8211; a suggestion that simply is not feasible in today's Mexico. One reason is that Mexico truly is, for all its faults, a democracy, which couldn&#8217;t be said in the 1980s and most of the 1990s. The former president's statement came in response to the recent arson attack on a Monterrey casino, one of the most deadly strikes on a public place in recent years, which left 52 dead. Mr. Fox, who was quite aggressive toward Mexico drug gangs while in office from 2000 to 2006, told a gathering at the close of a course on public security that &#8220;the levels of cruelty that we are seeing and experiencing are enormous,&#8221; and that the solution is to &#8220;call the violent groups to a truce and evaluate the advantages of an amnesty law.&#8221;

This reflects a sentiment that, while still a minority opinion, seems to be growing more common in Mexico. However, it was quickly slammed by a number of political heavyweights. President Felipe Calderon, who once served on Fox&#8217;s cabinet as energy secretary, acidly responded that the years of truces with organized crime under previous governments are precisely the reason for Mexico's security problems today. The National Action Party (PAN), which Mr. Calderon and Fox both belong to, passed a motion censuring the former leader for his comments. Though a political rival of Calderon&#8217;s, Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, a presidential hopeful for 2012, also rejected the truce proposal, saying it would be like &#8220;throwing in the towel.&#8221;

While the politicians&#8217; reponses appear to be a question of ideology, there are also powerful practical reasons for rejecting the truce: It simply is not feasible. Advocates of a truce often point to the 1980s and 1990s, when agreements between the PRI governments and the reigning drug barons supposedly kept violence to a minimum. The idea that there was an explicit deal, in which the government tolerated organized crime in exchange for relative peace, is undermined by the periodic outbursts of bloodshed seen in that period, as well as occasional arrests of even the most powerful capos. However, there is no question that there was significant interaction between high-ranking federal officials and the most powerful trafficking networks during the 1980s and 1990s, and that this played a role in limiting the violence.

There is reason to believe that a similar trade-off would simply be impossible today. In the 1980s, there were two large confederations of drug traffickers: the Guadalajara Cartel and the smaller Gulf Cartel. For the federal government, keeping two groups in line and maintaining contact with two sets of capos was a relatively simple affair. By the early 1990s, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo&#8217;s Guadalajara Cartel had split up, leaving behind a federation of Sinaloa and Juarez traffickers on one side, and the rival Tijuana Cartel on the other. While the leadership in the Gulf Cartel had changed by this point, the federal government was still looking at a manageable number of major actors. It was still possible to apply leverage to a small number of people and affect the industry in predictable ways.

Key Gulf Cartel figure is killed in northern MexicoSun, Sep 04, 2011 - DRUG WAR CASUALTY:Samuel Flores Borrego is believed responsible for the killing that set off the Gulf Cartel-Zeta war, and is believed to have been killed by his own cartel

Gunmen killed a leading Gulf Cartel commander who was sought by the US and believed to be behind a split with a rival crime organization that intensified Mexico&#8217;s drug violence, authorities said on Friday. Samuel Flores Borrego, also know as &#8220;el Metro 3,&#8221; was shot dead near Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, in what appeared to be an attack by members of his own cartel, the Mexican Attorney General&#8217;s Office said in a statement. He was found on Friday inside a vehicle along with the body of a police officer.

Flores, 39, is believed to be responsible for the killing of a Zetas member in January last year that led to a rupture between the former allies, US anti-drug officials have said. The Zetas started as a gang of hit men for the Gulf Cartel, but after the split formed their own cartel, and fighting between the groups over territory and drug turf has caused violence to soar in parts of Mexico. The US government had a reward of up to US$5 million for the capture of Flores, who faced drug-trafficking charges north of the border, according to an indictment in the District of Columbia last year. Of the 20 people charged in the US indictment, eight remain fugitives, including Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano and Gulf Cartel leader Jorge Eduardo Costilla.

The indictment says Flores was the Gulf Cartel&#8217;s chief in the border cities of Reynosa and Miguel Aleman and gathered information on police and security forces. The Zetas used to operate as the military arm of the Gulf Cartel. The indictment chronicles how the two gangs worked together under the name &#8220;The Company,&#8221; with Flores calling and meeting with the Zetas leader to plan cocaine and marijuana smuggling operations from Colombia. The alliance crumbled in January last year, when a member of the Zetas was slain in Reynosa apparently by Flores, leader of the border city&#8217;s &#8220;plaza&#8221; or shipping corridors, and a group of men. The killing led to fierce war between the two gangs, mostly in northern Mexico and Mexico&#8217;s Gulf coast.

The Mexican government has cracked down on the Zetas, arresting dozens of alleged members this year. Mexican marines killed leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also known as &#8220;Tony Tormenta&#8221; or &#8220;Tony the Storm,&#8221; in November last year. Mexican President Felipe Calderon acknowledged on Friday in his state-of-the-nation speech that violence &#8220;worsened with the rupture between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas.&#8221;

Cartels got the upper hand...Former cops: The drug cartels are winningFriday, September 16th, 2011 -- "[Look] at Phoenix, Arizona," Neill Franklin, a former undercover police officer in Maryland, told Raw Story recently. "That is the number two kidnapping capital in the world. A couple years back they were averaging one drug-related kidnapping every day. We do already have these [cartels] in the United States, but you just don't hear about them very often. And when we do, it's not the 'undocumented workers' as people are often led to believe, it's the result of our drug policies."

Suggesting Phoenix has the second most number of kidnappings out of any city in the world is not new: for instance, that very claim was immediately disputed after Sen. John McCain said it in 2010. However, a review of kidnapping statistics by a team of judges and criminologists earlier this year nearly doubled the official 2008 numbers, lending at least some credibility to the statement. No matter what statistic it is that's examined, be it the kidnapping ranking of Phoenix, shootings in El Paso, marijuana arrests in Brownsville or the number of new gang members in San Diego, the reality of today's America is that drug violence has become a pervasive and pressing threat to most citizens.

"We have got to fix this problem, or else it's going to get a lot worse for us here at home," explained Terry Nelson, whose three-decades in law enforcement saw him serving the U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs Service. "We talk a lot about the 40,000 people who've died in the last five years in Mexico's drug war, but we don't talk a lot about Central and South America. The drug deaths down there per 100,000 are just as great as Mexico. Guatemala, El Salvador ... These countries are just wiped out by drug cartels, and it's not even in the news."

Just last week, people on both sides of the border were shocked when authorities discovered a chilling scene where two bodies were hanging from a bridge, mutilated beyond recognition, next to a handwritten poster warning to avoid publishing about the cartels on social media or blogs. The situation has become so extreme that today more Mexican youths die from murder than vehicle accidents. But what does this mean for American citizens? In short: the drug cartels have won, but it doesn't have to be this way. Both Nelson and Franklin are members of the non-profit advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which aims to win the hearts and minds of law enforcement and conservative lawmakers, who've largely stood in the way of any significant changes to the nation's drug policies.

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